Blood on Asphalt
by FrankieFandom
Summary: One-shot. A night out doesn't end as planned.


**Blood on Asphalt**

Casey and Severide stumbled out of the bar, the loud music leached out onto the street until the door swung shut.

Severide went to hail a cab as Casey spoke sincerely, "Thanks for this Kelly. I needed it."

"You needed to get wasted?" Severide laughed but he knew what Casey meant. It had been two months since Hallie had died.

He scoffed. "I'm not _that_ drunk."

Just as Severide spotted an empty cab the two of them heard a distressed shout for help. They glanced at each other, there was no need for words, before running in the direction of the noise.

There was a group of three large men terrorising a smartly dressed woman in the darkened alleyway.

"Hey!" Casey called immediately at the sight. "Get off her!"

But despite his efforts they didn't scatter. He knew they'd have to physically intervene and although both Severide and Casey were outnumbered and their frames both smaller they had an advantage; experience and skills.

"Are you deaf? He said get off her!" Severide yelled as they walked quickly up to the men.

It worked and their attention moved on from the woman to the two of them.

"You two just made a very bad decision," one of the men responded.

Casey was by the woman's side. "Are you all right?"

But instead of an answer he got a right hook into the side of his face from one of the burley men. It took him a few moments to gather his senses and by that time Severide was already defending himself and attempting to aid him as he recovered from the blow.

Once recovered Casey knocked out one of them in two hits, the man fell to the floor with a thud. The two on Severide split up, Casey thought he saw light reflect off something in the man's head as he made his way over. Casey got him in the solar plexus, winding him, but the man recovered quickly and hit Casey in his side then moved to attack his head, he brought his arms up in defence but a sudden sharp pain in his chest caused him to gasp and drop them by his side.

"Shit..." the man muttered.

"Let's get out of here!" the other yelled when he saw the bloodied knife in his friend's hand. Quickly they hauled up their fallen friend and dispersed.

At first Severide was bewildered as to why the three men had only suddenly decided to scatter, and then he saw the fast growing red patch on Casey's shirt and his breath caught in his throat.

Casey bit his lip in pain and was unaware he was gripping the wall in support as he asked the woman if she was all right, but she didn't reply, she was transfixed on his chest.

"Matt, don't move," Severide warned.

But he did move, he moved and looked at Severide, a frown crossed his face before he followed his friend's gaze down and saw the blood blossoming his shirt. "Oh."

Severide was by his side in less than a second and grabbed him as his legs gave away, the colour had rushed from his face and his eyes were wide in shock.

"Call an ambulance!" Severide yelled to the woman as he gently lay Casey down onto the ground.

"I'm all right," Casey stated through gritted teeth.

"Yeah? You'd say that if half a limb was hanging off," he replied, his eyes focused on the blood soaked shirt. "Let's see what the damage is," he said conversationally, he didn't want Casey to go into shock, didn't want him losing his grip on reality.

Severide tore open the shirt, he heard a couple of buttons ping as the hit the ground in the silence of the alleyway. Casey's chest was bloody but he immediately saw the source of all the bleeding and placed his hand firmly over the knife wound.

Casey tried to swallow around the coppery substance in his mouth but ended up coughing and spluttering.

"Damnit..." Severide muttered at the sight of the red speckles that now adorned Casey's lips and chin.

"I'm all right." Casey was shaking now, trembling in shock as the blood continued to pour out of his body despite Severide's efforts to stem it. He coughed again, this time more blood erupted from his mouth, it pooled in the grooves of his teeth and trickled out the corner of his lip and onto the ground below. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. He started to panic. He wasn't getting enough air.

"Relax Matty, you've got to relax, you're all right, just like you said, you're all right..." he soothed. "How long until that ambulance gets here?" he asked the woman.

"They're on the way," she replied.

"Hang on, Case."

Every breath Casey took sounded like agony, he was wheezing, coughing, struggling to get enough oxygen. He was going to pass out.

"Case, look at me." He waited for Casey's clouded eyes to focus on him. "Don't you dare close those eyes, you hear me?"

Casey was about to reply but as he opened his blood slicked mouth a coughing fit erupted, leaving him panting and wheezing in agony.

"Hang on Matt, I can hear the ambo." He looked down at Casey's pain drunk eyes. "Just hang on, stay with me ok?"

"Not... going... anywhere..." Casey uttered determinedly but his eyes drifted close.

"Come on, Matt!"

His eyes opened almost immediately, Severide felt relieved until he spoke.

"Hals?"

Severide was lost for words.

"Hallie?"

"Dammit..." he muttered. "Matt, I need you to focus on me, I need you to stay awake... I... you need to do this for Hallie..."

"Hals?"

"Yeah you don't want to worry her, do you? So stay awake for me."

"Sev?"

"Yeah bud it's me."

"Didn't... didn't see it coming..."

The ambulance pulled up at the end of the alleyway and two paramedics made their way over to them. "What have we got?"

Severide didn't recognise either of them but he was paying little attention to anyone but Casey. "I didn't see the knife but it's hit his lung, he's not lost consciousness yet."

"Hey honey." The paramedic came into Casey's vision. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Matt Casey..." he slurred as the ECG electrodes were stuck to his bloody chest.

"Good Matt, I'm Janey and I'm going to take good care of you," she reassured him as she put a blood pressure cuff around his arm. "Do you remember what happened?"

Casey nodded. He felt the other paramedic tape some gauze to the wound that the man had persuaded Severide he could hands from.

"Good." She smiled. "How's the pain? Zero being nothing, ten being absolute agony."

"Erm... six maybe..." he wheezed.

"Six? I'm impressed, well you're going to feel a sharp prick but then I can give you some painkillers," she stated as the other paramedic slipped a rebreather mask over his blood splatter face. "This is going to hurt but we need to get you on the backboard," she warned him and he felt Severide grip his hand. "Ok," she addressed the others, "Roll him on one. Three, two, one..."

Casey bit his lip in attempt to stop himself from crying as agony waved through his body despite the painkillers.

"You're doing good, Matty," Severide assured him as he was lifted up on the backboard away from the pool of blood that had formed on the ground.

"Are you coming?" the paramedic asked him.

"Yeah." Severide nodded and hopped into the back of the ambulance.

* * *

"His pressure's dropping," the paramedic spoke when the monitor shrieked. She squeezed the IV bag in an attempt to speed up his fluid intake but Casey was still losing blood faster than he was gaining fluids.

Casey coughed and spluttered once more, spraying speckles of blood inside the mask before losing consciousness.

"Casey?" Severide questioned frantically, "Matt?"

"His pressure's steady, its low but it's not dropping." But then the monitor shrieked again, his O2 stats had plummeted, the paramedic intubated and all Severide could do was watch worriedly as his best friends life hanged in the balance.

* * *

Severide was pacing up and down in the waiting room, Casey had been taken in to surgery a few hours ago to repair the wound; the knife had pierced his left lung.

It was nearing 4am when Casey's doctor finally arrived. "How is he?" Severide hounded.

"The surgery went well, we'll know more when he wakes up but he should make a full recovery," he replied.

"Should?"

"I can't say anymore unless his family's..."

"He doesn't have any." It wasn't strictly true but Severide had no way of getting in contact with his mom, Casey didn't even know how to get in contact with his mom.

"His next of kin?"

"Is Hallie Thomas... and from that look I know you recognise her name, she died..."

"A month ago," the doctor finished solemnly.

"I'm all he's got."

The doctor nodded. "He lost a lot of blood, we're still transfusing some now, we're not worried about any damage from oxygen deprivation, looks like he had excellent pre-hospital care," he indicated to Severide's own bloody shirt. "He's in post-op care at the moment, he should wake up in about an hour, you'll be able to see him when he's moved to an intensive care ward."

"The damage to his lung... he's a firefighter?"

"The damage will repair completely, I'm confident that he'll be back on duty in a couple of months."

* * *

Casey woke up slowly and groggily, his eyelids felt incredibly heavy and his head felt like it was stuff full of cotton wool.

"Hey sleepy head."

"Kelly?" He forced his eyes open and was met with Severide's tired but smiling face.

"How are you feeling?"

He was struggling to even think, the painkillers had his mind snowed in, he frowned as he muttered, "Tired."

"Tired? You've spent the majority of the last two days asleep," Severide grinned.

"Two days?" he questioned, he could have sworn it had only been a few hours since he was woken up after his surgery. "That woman all right?"

"Yeah." Severide nodded. "We both had to give statements to the cops as well, they'll probably wanna speak to you too, when you're not so out of it." He smiled, covering up the worry he had felt over the last couple of days. Casey's recovery had been textbook, no infection, no complications, but Severide still felt sick to the stomach at the possibilities of what could have happened.

"They caught them?" Casey asked tiredly.

"Not yet," he replied. "Now go back to sleep, the others want to see you soon, they've been camped out here when we've not been on shift."

"You camped out? You hate camping..."

"Go to sleep Casey."

* * *

"You're still sleeping on the couch, aren't you?" Severide questioned. He'd followed Casey into his house after driving him home the hospital just over a week since he had been stabbed.

Casey nodded.

"I'll make up the spare room. You need a proper bed," Severide stated.

"No," he replied, "I'll sleep in my bedroom."

"It's no bother, I..."

"I need to start sleeping there again at some point, don't I?"

Severide glanced down for a moment before admitting, "After Andy died I stopped going to our regular diner to get coffee."

"Yeah... so did I," he replied. "Even now I sometimes have to stop myself from saying that the truck can't leave yet 'cause Andy's not on it... And I still think I'm going to wake up next to Hallie... but none of that's crazy. We just miss them. We always will."

"Mmm..." Severide grinned, "I dunno, I think it is a little crazy."

Casey scoffed. "We run into burning buildings for a living, I suppose we have to be a little crazy."

 **The End**


End file.
